International Football History and Statistics

On this day in football history

• 1894 Leicester Fosse were elected to the Second Division of the Football League. They won promotion in 1908 but were relegated again at the end of the following season. In 1919 the club was reformed as Leicester City.
• 1904 F.I.FA were inaugurated at a meeting in Paris. The original members were Belgium, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain. The FA joined in 1906 and Scotland, Ireland and Wales in 1910. Eire were admitted in 1923. The UK Associations resigned twice; from 1919 to 1924 over the issue of Germany and her allies being members after the First War and again in 1928. This second withdrawal was prompted by disagreements over the definition of amateurism and broken time payments and lasted until 1946.
• 1922 The Italian season which had two seperate championships organised by different federations ends with two champions Pro Vercelli and Novese.
• 1958 Reading signed Bobby Ayre from Charlton Athletic. Began as a winger with the London club but soon became a centre-forward. He played for England U-23's in the first intermediate international staged in Britain; against Italy in 1955. Only 5'6" tall he suffered a lot from injury and by 1960 he had left League soccer for the somewhat less demanding Southern League. He made 166 appearances in the Football League and scored 70 goals.
• 1963 Chelsea beat Portsmouth 7-0 at Stamford Bridge and so won promotion to the First Division on goal average. Relegated the previous season they had led the Second Division by six points at the end of the year but the bad weather which upset the League programme seemed to affect their rhythm. They lost so many matches that it looked as if they were going to miss out altogether but a win against their chief promotion rivals Sunderland set up their exciting finale.
• 1977 Manchester United beat Liverpool 2-1 in the FA Cup Final.
• 1984 Dave Bassett resigned as manager of Crystal Palace and returned to Wimbledon after only four days. "I made a mistake", he said.
• 1996 Bobby Robson becomes manager of Barcelona.